The present disclosure relates generally to an apparatus and process for improving the quality of a wooden bat. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to the “boning” of a wooden bat to increase its quality and performance.
The actual art of “boning” a bat is an old tradition that extends back decades in baseball. This process is typically where a person would take an animal bone, such as a cow bone or pig bone, and rub the bat with the bone while applying pressure. Typically, the area of the bat that was rubbed is the barrel portion, or hitting portion, of the bat. The concept is to smooth down the grain of the bat with the purpose of potentially making the barrel portion of the bat flatter, harder, and sealing pores within the wood.
The general concept for the need to “bone” a bat arises from the manufacturing process of a wooden bat itself. Typically, a wooden bat is turned on a lathe while the wood is cut, or sheared, down to the specifications of the bat desired. This cut is typically against the grain of the wood itself and leaves microscopic tears in the grain of the wood. Boning will typically compress the cells of the wood, lay down the rough edges caused by the tears, and smooth the exterior surface of the bat. If done correctly, the process can prolong the life of the bat by eliminating or reducing minute scratches and tears in the bat surface. These scratches and tears can allow moisture to infiltrate the bat, develop into cracks, and cause the demise or break of the bat. A properly “boned” unfinished bat will look as if it has been finished with a semi-gloss sealer.
Up until now, the conventional ways to bone a bat were to place a bone-type-object in a clamp or vise and rub the barrel length of the bat along the bone. Alternately, the player would hold the bat in his or her lap or hand and rub the bone across the bat accordingly. Even production facilities typically place a bat in a lathe or holding device and still manually rub the bone-type-structure across the barrel length to bone the bat. These activities result in uneven pressure and uneven coverage of the barrel section of the bat. This can defeat the very purpose of boning the bat to begin with by allowing a non-uniform application of the boning process. This kind of non-uniform application typically does not properly seal the bat and results in the micro tears and fractures that allow moisture within the bat and lead to an early failure of the bat due to the infiltration of that moisture. Additionally, this moisture can also increase the weight of the bat thereby reducing performance of the bat when swung due to a lack of bat speed by the player.
What is needed then is an automated boning process for wooden bats. Preferably this process provides a uniform application of the boning technique to properly process the bat for use. This apparatus and method is lacking in the art.